


War Has No Eyes

by mamculuna



Category: Years of Rice and Salt
Genre: Book Nine, F/F, F/M, Misses Clause Challenge, Nsara
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-19
Updated: 2011-12-19
Packaged: 2017-10-27 12:57:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/296093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mamculuna/pseuds/mamculuna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Idelba met Kirana, and how they tried to stop the Long War.</p>
            </blockquote>





	War Has No Eyes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jetamors](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jetamors/gifts).



THE WAR HAS NO EYES

Teargas blew in the ocean breeze, across the tile roofs, past the minarets.  Like smoke it rose up from the square where the women stood in a strong line, their arms linked, and brightly visible through the misted gas in their black robes and white hijabs. There were a lot of them--thousands, at least, ranked in rows and filling the square.

The soldiers waited with their old guns at the ready, facing the rows of women.  Even far across the square, Idelba could sense the men's confusion and fear.

Very deliberately, very slowly, two women in the balcony above unfurled the banner.

WAR ENDS NOW.

Idelba looked sideways at Basha beside her. The delicate bones, the huge, hooded eyes--she looked as composed and peaceful as she did at prayer. The tears from the gas rolled quietly down the black cheeks.

And then the soldiers began to move.

*******

Idelba trudged along the stone street, watching Nsara's rain fall on the grey sea, on seawall rocks, on tile roofs and bare trees.  The clouds hung low and dark.  On days like this, she could almost wish herself back in the harem of her father's house, where she stayed warm and dry while servants did the marketing. But even there, she thought, the war has taken all the men and women must wander in the world. And a good thing, too.

Her headscarf was soaked in spite of the umbrella, and her feet were freezing.  The yellow light of the zawwiyya shone in the mist like a hearth, and she walked more quickly to the door, dodging other women picking their way across the stones and puddles.

A lecture on physics.  Who would have thought that even one woman would attend, and yet here were ten, with notebooks and pens at the ready, seated around the tiny brazier in the center of the room.  Not surprisingly, the man standing in the teacher's place was bent with age, his patched djelaba hanging loosely on his gaunt frame. And who wasn't gaunt, sixty-five years into the war? But what was surprising was his dark skin--few indeed came north from Africa in these times, with the seas full of submarines and the land cratered by guns. But here he stood, Dr. Nassim Nam Nyaah.

As he spoke, Idelba's mind burned like a rocket. Ideas exploded into newer ideas, and she felt herself almost panting with the fire in her mind.  And so many people already knew these things, she thought. They understand that the tiny particles at the heart of matter were made, yes, of even tinier particles. They already knew about this other mysterious world that only now was revealed to her.

And then the qi went out, of course, and left them in total darkness.  Was it because the army no longer trusted civilians to make a good blackout, or was there no coal left for the boilers that made the qi? Probably both, Idelba thought, but she ground her teeth in frustration.

A candle flared and she saw beyond it the young woman carrying more candles.  Her face was amazingly beautiful, full black eyes over high cheekbones, and a delicate high-bridged nose, much like Dr. Nyaah.  And as the soft lights glowed, he began again.

When Idelba had first begun to visit the zawwiyya, hesitant and fearful to be alone, outside the harem, she hadn't thought she was stepping on a path that would lead her here, to this square. She'd gone for the lectures by Dr. Nyaah, and she'd sat transfixed when he began to describe the theories that explained the workings of those tiny particles, the heartknots, like minute planetary systems, but filled with some trapped energy.  Only after the lecture, when she met Kirana in the common room for coffee, had she realized that the graceful assistant was his niece Basha.

And, even after so few weeks, they spoke easily, as friends.

"Your uncle is quite brilliant." Idelba dipped her head towards the classroom they'd just left.

Basha smiled. "He is not only brilliant, but very fortunate. In our country, many scientists were kidnapped during the Sultan's Rebellion.  If my uncle and some others had not been hidden by the Imams, Bamoun would be a place of ignorance."

As are you." Idelba felt awkward. "Kind, I mean. Kind to come when the ocean is full of war, full of submarines and battleships."

Basha smiled and sipped her coffee. "But you are kind, to host us. And we didn't come by sea--otherwise, we might be at the bottom of it. We came in an airship."

Idelba gasped. "But that must have been so much worse!  The guns from the ground, the steam flyers…" At the same time, she felt a twinge of envy. To come so far--by air! Idelba had never flown.

Kirana returned from the coffee table to join them, her eyes fixed on Basha's lovely face.

"And what do you think of Nsara, now that you're here? It must seem sad and dark, after sunny Bamoun." Even with such simple words, Kirana dominated the room as she did every space she entered.

"Ah, Nsara is amazing.  Even after all these years of war, still you keep studying and learning. "

"But war is everywhere. China, Yingzhou, the whole world."

Basha looked embarrassed by Kirana's close scrutiny. She shifted away. "Maybe it is possible that you have not heard here about the Peace of Bamoun?"

"Peace?" Kirana's dark eyes looked even darker. "Not in this world."

"It is possible…" said Basha.

If we were Chinese, thought Idelba, they'd be sent to the front lines to use their anger on us. But maybe Chinese women are never so angry.

By now, Kirana had Basha almost cornered, prying out the story of the peaceful rebellion of Bamoun. Basha's voice was low and clipped, and Idelba wondered if she had already noticed Kirana's rage.  Certainly the African woman wasn't happy to be suddenly snatched from her role as lab assistant to be made a source for discontented Nsarenes. And no wonder, thought Idelba--it was we who enslaved so many of them, dragged them into our war. Now we expect them to help us end it?

"It took years," said Basha. "Years to reach each person in the country, years to convince them that non-violence could work.  And only when everyone was ready, when each person was willing to die, only then did we start."

Kirana's eyes glowed, and a rare smile played across her face. "But for us it will not take so long. For us, it will be women, and we are already prepared to die to end war."

You may be, thought Idelba, but the women still in harems? The mothers with tiny children?

********

As the line of soldiers moved toward the first row, the women moved closer to each other and linked arms more tightly. Idelba watched Basha's face in profile, calm and dignified as an eagle, while her own body was trembling with fear, or hope, or excitement, she wasn't sure which. She had to force herself to stand still and quiet. Even in November, the sun was warm on her face and shone on the ocean waves beating against the sea wall. The gull's cries were the only sound other than the steady clomps of the soldier's feet as they move toward the center of the square, parting when they reached the fountain and rejoining ranks once past it.

Idelba finally let herself move to the thoughts that terrified her even more than the soldiers. Where were Kirana, and the Wings of the Lion, the women who followed her?  They had wanted this so much--and now only they were not here, with all the other women of Nsara, standing between the soldiers and the bombs.

All that kept the soldiers from using their guns was the women's silent stillness.  Even a shout might be enough to startle them into firing.

**********

Idelba sat back from her desk, exhilarated. She saw connections now that she wouldn't have guessed, earlier.   If the calculations were accurate, her figures showed the movement of one of the tiny particles in the heartknot.

She wanted to tell Basha.

It was dark, but again the necessity of war had given her the freedom to go. Her husband Samir was away in Roma, and without him to restrain her, Idelba all but ran towards the house where Basha lived with her uncle. Little light came from the thin crescent in the sky, and the stones were rough. It was Dr. Ayaah himself who caught her when she tripped on the garden walk.

"Aah, our sister Idelba! Our path is rough, please take care!" He held her arm just a moment longer than necessary to steady her.

She tried not to giggle stupidly with embarrassment. "I'm very sorry, Dr. Ayaah! Thank you!"

He led her into the house, bidding her good-night with a smile as he left again. In the dimness, Idelba stumbled again on the stairs, but soon found the dim light of Basha's rooms beckoning her. A low murmur of voices came through the heavy tapestry that draped the door.

Pulling it aside to enter, Idelba called Basha, softly. The murmurs stopped as she entered.

Basha and Kirana sat on huge bright cushions near the brazier. Little cups of coffee sat untouched on a brass tray.

Kirana had grasped Basha's arm and leaned towards her, her strong nose and fierce eyes pinning the other woman to her spot.  Basha drew back from the intensity.

For an amazed moment, Idelba seemed to see other faces settling over theirs:  a woman and a man, in Chinese clothes, two women with Inka faces.  And then her vision cleared so that she saw Kirana and Basha again, but the other faces still seemed to float in the shadows.

At the sound of Idelba's voice, Kirana dropped her grip on Basha's arm and smiled at her sister-in-law.

"Basha is telling me how the people of Bamoun defeated the slavers and made the Peace of Bamoun."

Basha blinked in irritation.

"I am telling you how we worked it at the end, but you must begin with educating each person. Even if you think you can prevail with women only, you must reach every woman. Everyone must understand."

Kirana snorted, her long thin face twisted in dismissal.

"We no longer have years to do that, you know. The war has drained us of all our food, of all our scientists and many of our doctors. The war has destroyed too many generations, and we must stop it now--not next year."

"But--if you don't pursue the non-violent way correctly, you'll just really be opening another front on the war. You'll find yourselves in jail, anyway--but if you start violence, you may find yourselves dead."

Kirana stood. "I'm going to talk with some friends about this. We may want you to tell us more, but let us plan to get started. Sixty years of war! We have to end it now, before we're all dead of starvation."

She swept out, leaving Basha with her eyes cast down.

"Kirana can be very dramatic," said Idelba, wishing this hadn't happened at all.

Basha raised her head and turned to her guest with a graceful twist of her long neck.  She raised huge eyes to meet Idelba's.

"I should never have told her anything," she said, bitterly. "If she insists on starting something without total support, she'll just be killed and the country will be worse than ever.  It will twist and warp the army, making them turn against their own."

"Maybe I can talk with her," said Idelba, with little conviction. Kirana had never listened even to her brother, Idelba's husband--why would she listen to his wife?

"But come, let me make fresh coffee."

"Oh, no, we can drink this. It's so expensive--it's a shame to waste it."

Sipping the cold bitter brew, Basha's face grew calmer, and Idelba remembered why she'd come. She started to tell Basha about her calculations and the mysterious planet that wandered in darkness.

"You have indeed found something!"

"I believe it, I think it is there."

Basha looked at the pages of calculations. "Shall we tell my uncle?"

She grasped Idelba's hand. The unexpected softness sent a thrill through Idelba's body, nothing like the hesitation she always felt when Samir touched her. She drew in a quiet breath and met Basha's eyes, dark and soft, mysterious as a distant planet.

Basha didn't release her hand, but grasped it more firmly.

"Or we can stay in here."

******

As the soldiers stepped closer, Idelba began to try to calm herself with deep breaths, fixing her gaze on the stones around the fountain. Those stones have been here since the Christians, she thought. I will stand like a stone myself, unafraid.

******

"You will stay in this house! I will make another harem!" Samir's face was purple with anger. He tore off the djelaba and threw it on the floor. "You will wash and cook and clean the floor! No more classes, no more visits with the…Africans!" He spat out the word.

Idelba sat looking at him with no response. She'd always known this side of Samir, but she'd never felt its full force directly at her.  Now he lacerated her with harshness of his voice, and she knew that with one more word, he would strike her body.

It was her fault that he had found her with Basha in the bath. Idelba never expected him to return so early, nor to come into her rooms so quietly. One minute the two women were laughing softly as their bare floating limbs touched under the surface of the warm green water, and the next moment Samir was in the room, exploding. He turned away long enough for Basha to grab a cloak and run, barefooted in the cold, for the safety of her uncle's house--and indeed, only Dr. Ayaah's well-respected name kept Samir from worse.

As Samir stormed up and down the tiles of the rooms, his boots striking like a blow with every step, Idelba said the last prayer she would ever say, and sat in silence until he left.

When the moon rose, she slipped out the window and walked slowly toward the zawwiyya, knowing she could never go back to the house she had left. The image of the harem in her father's house in Turi rose before her, the endless boredom of the days there, the pettiness of the women's quarrels, the intrigues over an earring or a laugh as vicious as the war itself. 

I will die there or here, she thought. 

When she reached the dark building, she found Kirana gathered with her friends, as always, coffee and hashish keeping them awake late into the night.

She thought about sharing her story with the women, but shied away when she remembered how Kirana's eyes had lingered on Basha's elegant face and how much she loved her brother, in spite of their endless quarrels. Easier just to slip into the library room and continue to work with her calculations.

But Kirana wouldn't let her go.

"You above all must join us," she said fiercely.  "You will bring many of the younger girls with you." And it was true that the girls, little more than children, would follow their young teacher anywhere. All the more reason to wait, thought Idelba.

But there would be no waiting for these women. "We are the Wings of the Lion," Kirana said proudly. "We will hold our bodies between the soldiers and their ships, and we will not let them go on with this war. The war will end this week!"

Idelba carefully repeated what she'd heard Basha say about the long preparation needed before they tried action.  She watched the brazier light flicker on the tired, excited faces, and she felt a surge of pride at the women's courage, even as she tried to urge patience and forethought.

Kirana wandered quietly in bare feet, pouring coffee as cups were held to her.

Idelba wondered what Kirana would do when she heard about the evening at her brother's house.

"Basha." Kirana's hot dark eyes burned Idelba's as she gazed at her. "You can persuade Basha. We need her most of all."

*******

The women's shouts grew louder, and the back rows of soldiers were ordered backwards towards them. But the front rows kept plodding forward.

The soldiers facing them looked tired and confused. Idelba had a sudden urge to comfort the young boy advancing towards her, although she knew that he was so exhausted and hopped up on khat that a flicker of her eyes could scare him into shooting her.  The women were scarcely in better shape, but their only weapon was their presence, a weapon already being fired.

*******

"Ah, Basha. Maybe we should leave here now, and go back to Bamoun."  Idelba knew it was a fantasy before she voiced the plan.

"Perhaps that would be wise. But surely we can find a way to live here a little longer. My uncle will protect us."

"But it will cost him, in reputation. Samir will tell, even if he looks bad as well.  He feels himself scorned, and he'll do what he can to get revenge."

Basha smiled. "We will let Uncle decide for himself."

Idelba blushed, thinking of how they would explain what had been going on to infuriate Samir so much.

"But Kirana…she's almost as big a problem as Samir."

"I know.  And she wants me to take part in this craziness."

"And I--I really want just to work on this strange planet, and yet…they are so brave, Basha. They care so much.  I don't think I can change them, but I can't desert them, either."

Basha laid her hand gently on the back of Idelba's neck.

"And I cannot desert you."

*********

A loud explosion from behind the soldiers. The ground shook, and Idelba gasped.

Even the soldiers in front of them looked back. A cloud of smoke and tear gas blew into Idelba's eyes, burning them so she couldn't see anything but a blur of movement in the distance, with shouts and then screams rising above the shouts.

The women held their line, but the soldiers were falling into disarray.

And then total chaos. Shots began to fly, not towards the rear, but toward the balcony where the banner hung. Men were running into the rows of women. New screams came as bodies hit bodies and then fell to the ground.

Idelba felt Basha's arm pull away from their link. She tried to reach out, to hold her, but already a soldier was between them.

Another explosion, this time with even bigger clouds of smoke. New teargas. More bullets.

Something hit Idelba in the pit of her stomach, and she fell to the ground beneath a mass of limbs and guns and flying robes.  She struggled to roll free and found herself finally at the fountain. She splashed water on to her burning eyes and face.

Just as vision was returning, someone grabbed her around the waist and dragged her away. And soon again she found herself at the bottom of a struggling pile.

Finally the wind prevailed and the clouds of smoke and gas dispersed, just as Idelba broke free a final time. The square was littered with bodies and blood. Women and men both were crying, some softly moaning and others begging for help.

But row on row of women still stood, the banner still waved from the balcony, and the soldiers were being called back. Was this victory?

Many more days of this, though Idelba, but now we know we can do it. Maybe this will spread. Maybe the war will end at last.

But where was Basha?

Idelba ran from body to body, and then to the other side of the fountain. No one was recognizable, or else there was no one here she knew. She staggered on to the other side of the square, tripping on an outstretched leg half way there.

The moan from the body beyond the leg caught at her heart.

"Basha!"

She knelt and saw the familiar dark skin, the sweet lines of the face. Basha didn't look hurt, not at all. Idelba felt a wave of relief wash through her.

And then she saw the blood.

A bullet must have hit an artery in Basha's leg.  Blood was streaming over the stones beneath her.

She grasped Basha's hand and touched her face. The eyes parted just slightly.

"Basha, Basha.  What will we do without you? What will I do?" Idelba felt tears that weren't from chemicals streaming down her face.

"Maybe…maybe I can come back," whispered Basha. "Dear one."  The Chinese and Yingzhou faces flashed in front of hers again, but then Idelba looked away to see the trucks with red crescents pulling up to the square, the white-robed doctors pouring out with their bags--just as they always did after a Chinese bombing run.

She started to stand and call a doctor to help Basha.  And then she knew there was no point in it. Basha's hand had slipped from hers, and her breath had stopped. But her face was Basha again, only Basha.

Idelba sat beside her until the square was cleared of wounded and the teams came for the bodies. But before then, Dr. Ayaah had joined her and begun to chant quietly in a language from Bamoun, calling on gods far away.

When the trucks with corpses had pulled away, too, and the soldiers had formed their squads and gone back to work in the war again, Dry Ayaah and Idelba stood watching the sunset.

"Where will you go now?" He asked her.

"There is nowhere for me but Turi, and my father's harem, " she said bitterly.

"No," he said, taking her hand. "My house is one other place."

She looked at him. Was he asking her to be his concubine? His servant?

He gave his gentle smile again, in spite of the dirt and tears on his face. "You will need a husband's protection, to keep you from the harem. I will need a--partner in my work. Can we help each other?"

As the women behind them began to sing, she thought about what he was saying. She'd be living a new way, with someone from a world very different from her own--but she would be working. And they would be remembering Basha together.

 

  
IN THE BARDO:

  
Idelba and Basha/Budur sat quietly, enjoying the peace, while Kirana paced, furious as always.

"So much could have been saved, if only you had waited," said Idelba at last.

Kirana shot her a glance of rage and jealousy.

"All well and good for you, but the rest of us were dying in the war."

Basha/Budur quieted them. "We don't know. Maybe we did help end the war sooner. Maybe it would have lasted a hundred years."

"At least you came back to me," said Idelba.

"At least you loved me this time," said Kirana.

But then the lights began to shine, and the next bodies were calling, and they fell away, one more time.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> In Kim Stanley Robinson's _The Years of Rice and Salt,_ we see the world as it might have been if the plague of the 14th century (CE) had killed all Europeans: gradually the world is divided among the Islamic sultanates, China, the natives of North America (Yingzhou), and an Indian country, Travancore. Additionally, this is the story of a _jati_ , or set of characters with relationships that endure from reincarnation to reincarnation. The history of the world from the plague years to 2088 is presented in ten episodes, each showing the set of characters in a new incarnation (but recognizable by the first letters of their names) and each episode also representing a development in the history of the world. This story is the backstory for Book Nine, and is set in the later years of the Long War, in Nsara--Europe has been repopulated by immigrants from North Africa and the east, and Nsara is a city set approximately in the location of Bordeaux, France. Women there have more freedom than in other parts of the Sultanate, and there is more of a cultural mix. Science as we know it is developing, as is technology, but with some differences. This is the backstory of Kirana and Idelba from Book Nine (Nsara), but the B character is new, not in the novel. This also tries to address some of what might have happened in Africa, also not related in the novel. I have used some of Robinson's terminology: _qi_ for electricity and _heartknot_ for atom.
> 
>  
> 
> In Book Nine of _The Years of Rice and Salt_ , the B character is reborn as the daughter of Idelba's half-brother, in Turi, where Idelba has gone after the death of her second husband. Budur, the new incarnation, and Idelba flee the harem and return to Nsara, where Budur becomes Kirana's student, follower, and eventually lover.


End file.
